Hitachi cuts consumption of desktop HDDs

San Jose (USA) – Today speed and capacity are no longer the only criteria by which to evaluate a 3.5-inch hard disk: the consumption factor is becoming increasingly important also in the desktop and server sector, towards which the energy saving technologies born in the mobile sector. This is the case with Hitachi GST, which has just launched a new Deskstar drive model, the P7K500 integrating some features for reducing consumption, previously available exclusively on notebook disks.

The P7K500 particularly benefits from the HiVERT technology which provides a more efficient transformation of electrical voltages, and some power management features which, according to the manufacturer, contribute to making this unit the lowest-power desktop hard drive in its category.

The Advanced Power Management features integrated in the P7K500 support two different ways of reducing consumption: the Unload idle which in moments of inactivity takes care of parking the heads and turning off the servo motor of the mechanical arm, and the Low RPM idle which in addition to turning off the servo motor also reduces the rotation speed of the magnetic plates.

Compared to traditional energy saving technologies, Hitachi claims that Unload idle reduces consumption by up to 11%, while Low RPM idle can reduce them by 44% . However, the latter mode comes into play only after a certain period of total inactivity of the disc, this to minimize the impact on performance.

Overall, the manufacturer claims its new hard drive consumption on average up to 40% less than the previous generation Deskstar drive and up to 59% cheaper than a comparable competitive 250GB hard drive.

The P7K500 will soon be available on the market in denominations of between 250 and 500 GB, and employs second generation perpendicular magnetic recording technology. The technical specifications of the drive are reported in this press release.